


It Won't Be Long

by Ostentenacity



Series: creatures of habit [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Domestic, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Melancholy, Scottish Honeymoon Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28616592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ostentenacity/pseuds/Ostentenacity
Summary: All the way to Scotland, Jon’s daemon can’t stop shivering.Martin’s is still nowhere to be found.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: creatures of habit [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2173755
Comments: 44
Kudos: 215





	It Won't Be Long

**Author's Note:**

> Title swiped from ["Train Song" by Vashti Bunyan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hswWRRk4vAo). I can't listen to music with lyrics and write at the same time, but if I could, I would have been listening to that song on repeat while writing this.
> 
> Thank you to [acemartinblackwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semnai/pseuds/acemartinblackwood) for beta reading!
> 
> Content warnings & some background notes on this AU can be found in the end notes.

Jon catches more than one of the other passengers staring on the train. Once, he might have tried to stare some of them down, tried to inflict some guilt in exchange for their rudeness. But between his relief at having Martin back, his dread at not having spotted a single sign of Aloysius, and his exhaustion after the events of the past few hours, he simply can’t be bothered. Instead, he just leans against Martin’s shoulder, cradling Theodora’s scrawny form in his arms, and dozes lightly all the way to Scotland.

* * *

Martin waits until they’re away from the crowd to complain. “You think they’d at least _try_ to be subtle,” he grumbles as he drives away from the car rental lot. “Plenty of people have small daemons. Or shy ones.”

“You think they were staring at you?” Jon asks, once more resisting the urge to glance around in search of Al. It feels so strange to talk to Martin but not his daemon. He’s much harder to read without his nervous little sheepdog giving cues.

Or maybe Jon’s just out of practice. It has been a while, after all.

“You think they _weren’t?”_ Martin asks, jolting Jon out of his thoughts.

Jon shrugs. “I’m not sure,” he says aloud, since Martin’s gaze is still fixed on the road ahead. “I assumed at least some of them were looking at me.”

“Theodora’s not hard to spot, though,” says Martin.

Jon’s free hand goes up to scratch between her ears, and she presses her trembly, gray-furred head into his hand. “Neither are her scars.”

“Oh. Right.” There’s a pause, and then Martin sighs. “Jon, I’m so sorry. I should’ve—you shouldn’t’ve had to—”

“Martin—”

“—to follow me in, I should’ve known better—”

 _“Martin._ It wasn’t your fault.”

Martin takes a shuddering breath, and then pulls over to the side of the road and turns off the car. “It was, though. If it hadn’t been for me, you would’ve never had to be separated.”

Jon can’t help a reflexive wince at the memory. Even after all he’d been through, leaving Theodora behind had been uniquely agonizing. But he reaches out and takes Martin’s hand in his. “If it hadn’t been for me,” he says quietly, “you’d never have gone to Peter in the first place.”

Martin whips around to stare at him, aghast. “Jon, that’s not—please don’t tell me you feel bad about being in a _coma,_ because that’s just—”

Jon raises an eyebrow at him.

“It’s not the _same,”_ says Martin. His chin juts out stubbornly, and Jon’s chest aches. He looks just like his old self, and that’s the problem: every time he’s seen Martin make that face before, Al had been staring out judgmentally from behind Martin’s legs. Without him nearby, the expression seems curiously hollow.

Jon shakes it off. This is neither the time nor the place. “I still won’t blame you for it. Going after you was my decision—mine and Theodora’s. You didn’t force me to do anything, and I’m glad I did it.”

Martin looks away, and then glances back at Theodora out of the corner of his eye.

“I told him to go,” says Theodora. Her voice is even thinner and more static-choked than the last time she spoke to Martin, but to his credit, he doesn’t flinch. “And I’m glad he went, too.”

Martin looks down at his lap and swallows hard. Timidly, he squeezes Jon’s hand, then lets go and rubs his eyes. When he turns back to Jon, he still looks a bit out of sorts, but at least he no longer looks like he’s about to burst into tears. “Thank you,” he says, and then looks down at Theodora again. “Thank you.”

The rest of the drive is quiet. Jon has the distinct feeling that they’re not done with this particular conversation just yet, and Al’s absence still feels like a gaping wound. But Martin is alive and _here,_ so Jon lets himself simply enjoy the company.

* * *

The house, while dusty, is at least in moderately good repair. Jon begins cleaning almost by reflex as soon as his and Martin’s meager luggage is inside, and Martin fetches an extra rag from the closet and joins right in. 

Occupied as he is, Jon can’t carry Theodora, and she’s even more underfoot than usual. She and Jon have never had particularly good range in the first place—maybe a meter and a half before it starts getting uncomfortable, rather than the average three to four—but lately it’s been hard to give up the comfort of actually touching one another. He knows that carrying his daemon in his arms everywhere probably makes him look more than a little bit childish, but cats can’t sit on shoulders the way insects or snakes or small birds do. (Or, at least, Theodora can’t; her balance has been off ever since Jon’s misadventure with Mike Crew.)

After the third time Jon nearly trips over her, Martin asks, “Can I try something?”

“Hmmm?” Jon turns to him. 

In Martin’s hands is a spare sheet from the closet. He holds it up with a slightly sheepish expression. “It just looks like a sling might help.”

Jon blinks. He’s never really thought to use one before. It’s not like Jon has any reason to need it when his arms are free; Theodora has never weighed much, and his arms work just fine. And most people don’t have problems keeping their daemon across the room if they need a clear space; it’s always seemed a little like cheating to use a sling for household chores.

But there’s nobody here to judge, except for Martin, and it was his idea. And Jon would really rather not fall and bruise or break something; he heals fast nowadays, but that doesn’t mean injuries don’t still hurt. So he lets Martin fashion a clumsy sling out of the sheet, and lifts Theodora into it. 

The knots in the fabric are bulky, and the sheet isn’t quite the right shape for this, but having Theodora curled up against his chest is miles better than having her butting against his ankles as he tries to walk. Jon opens his mouth to say thank you, but Theodora beats him to it, her little voice muffled by the fabric.

Martin blushes. “Oh! Um, it really wasn’t any trouble. I’ll just—let you get back to it, yeah?”

Jon can’t really hug Martin with his daemon between them, so he reaches out and touches his arm instead. Martin smiles shyly before resuming his wiping down of the kitchen counters.

* * *

That night, Jon is woken by Martin sliding out of the other side of the bed. “Everything all right?” he mumbles, half-sitting and fumbling for the lamp. “Would you rather Theo slept somewhere else after all?”

Theodora grumbles faintly where she’s curled up on Jon’s other side.

“No, that’s fine,” Martin whispers. “I just need some air. Go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” says Jon, and settles back down as Martin’s footsteps recede to the next room. He doesn’t go back to sleep, though; Theodora slips out from under the covers and follows Martin.

Jon waits with bated breath as the connection between them stretches out and out. Three meters. Four. Five. Six. Longer by far than they’ve ever managed without excruciating pain. It’s not comfortable, but it doesn’t hurt the same way it always has. Whether that’s due to their recent ordeal in the Lonely, or because Martin is there and Jon trusts him more than anyone else in the world, he isn’t sure. He just hopes Theodora doesn’t decide to wander any further.

A faint sensation of cold; Martin and Theo are sitting on the tiny porch, shivering in the chill. Jon tries not to eavesdrop, but he can’t entirely help it; it’s been more than a year—well, a year and a half—since Theodora was last able to do anything without him knowing about it.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to get a blanket?” Martin is saying. “You’re shivering.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” says Theodora. As always, a faint hiss of static creeps in between her words. “I’ve been shivering since we got out of the Lonely, warm or cold. Besides, a blanket won’t help.”

“What do you mean?” Jon can’t see what’s going on, but he knows that tone of voice, and he can almost hear Martin’s wrinkled brow.

“I’m not warm-blooded anymore,” says Theodora. “Can’t generate my own heat. Not since the coma. I don’t have to breathe, either.”

A pause, and then—“Would a hot water bottle help?”

“Probably,” says Theodora. “But you don’t need to get up for my sake. I do have fur.”

“I suppose that’s true,” says Martin.

“Thank you, though,” says Theodora, much too sincerely. Jon tenses. 

“You don’t have to thank me,” Martin mumbles. He sounds slightly muffled. Embarrassed? “I didn’t even do anything, just offered.”

“That counts,” says Theodora. “That matters.”

There’s another pause. Theodora seems to be willing to let the matter drop. Jon sighs in relief, tension dropping from his shoulders. 

“Did you mean what you said?” Martin asks, eventually. “About not blaming me?”

“Of course I did,” says Theodora. “He meant what he said, too. We didn’t—we wouldn’t _lie_ to you, Martin.”

“No, I know, it’s just—” Martin sighs. “You said it yourself. You’ve been shaking like a leaf ever since he got me out.”

“So?”

“He hurt you to help me,” says Martin quietly. “Or—the two of you agreed to hurt you to help me. You, his daemon.”

“Yes,” says Theodora. 

“Doesn’t that—doesn’t it _upset_ you? That he—?”

“That we had to go through a bit of an ordeal to save someone we both care about? No.”

“I wouldn’t call that a _bit_ of an ordeal,” Martin objects.

“All right, a lot of an ordeal, then. I still agreed.”

_“Why?”_

Jon realizes what’s about to happen a half second before it happens. He sits bolt upright, heart hammering, just as Theodora tells Martin, “I love you.”

There’s a pause while all three of them let that sink in.

“That is to say, _we_ love you,” says Theodora. “To be clear.”

“Oh,” says Martin.

“And if he’d refused to go in after you,” Theodora continues, as Jon tries his very hardest to think _No! Stop talking now!_ at her, “neither he nor I would ever have forgiven him.”

Jon puts his head in his hands. So much for giving Martin his space. Goddamn impulsive cat—

“Oh,” says Martin again.

“You didn’t know?” Theodora asks.

“I thought it might have been wishful thinking,” says Martin in a small voice.

Jon freezes. Wishful thinking?

“So that was just the Lonely talking?” Theodora says, with the same hope in her voice that has suddenly sprung up in Jon’s chest. “When you said that you—?”

“I mean, it was true,” says Martin. “It’s just also _still_ true. That I, um. That I really love you, I mean.”

Jon lets out a shuddering breath.

“Oh!” says Martin suddenly. “Can I really—?”

That’s all the warning Jon gets before a surging electric pulse begins sweeping from the crown of his head all the way to his toes. It’s hard to get the scattered pieces of his brain to work together long enough to assemble the thought that Martin is petting the fur between Theo’s ears.

“That feels different than I thought it would,” says Martin, fascinated and slightly hazy. 

“How’d you think it would feel?” Jon asks, before remembering that Martin can’t actually hear him. 

Theodora must have asked a similar question, though, because Martin answers, “It’s nicer than I expected. Sort of warm, isn’t it?”

 _“You’re_ warm,” says Theodora, and Jon flops helplessly back onto the mattress as she climbs into Martin’s lap and sticks her face into the hollow of his throat. Martin giggles, a sweet and unexpected sound, and the pulse intensifies further as he wraps his arms around her.

“You really are cold,” Martin murmurs, the vibration of his voice making Theodora’s skull buzz. “Let’s get you inside.”

The stretched-out tether between Jon and Theodora slackens again as Martin approaches the bedroom. When Martin walks in and sees Jon staring at him, he freezes.

“Is—is this all right?” Martin asks, seeming suddenly unsure. “I thought—I wouldn’t have done anything if she hadn’t, um, initiated—”

“Come here,” says Jon. Martin tries to hand off Theo to Jon, but Jon flings his arms around Martin’s neck, squishing Theo gently between them. Theo, for her part, starts purring. “I love you,” Jon says. “Of _course_ I love you.”

Martin shifts Theodora’s weight to one arm and snakes the other around Jon’s waist. “Did you hear all that?”

“Most of it,” says Jon. “Sorry.”

Martin laughs softly. “‘S all right. I figured she would probably tell you anyway.” His thumb rubs a circle against Jon’s back. “So you know that I… how I…”

“I know,” says Jon. “You don’t have to say it again, if it’s hard for you. I know.”

Martin lets out a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s… good. Thank you.”

Jon sighs as well. The electric feeling of _someone is touching my daemon_ is starting to edge over the line from pleasant to too much. Jon lifts Theodora out of Martin’s grip and sits back down. “Come back to sleep?” Martin nods and circles around to the other side of the bed.

Theodora still ends up on the other side of Jon from Martin, which is probably for the best; if they bumped into each other in the night, it would almost certainly wake all three of them up. But Jon does end up with his head resting against Martin’s shoulder and one arm thrown across his body, so there’s no lack of closeness.

* * *

It would probably be wiser for Jon to stay behind at the house rather than accompany Martin to the co-op. There’s far less of a chance of him stumbling across a stranger with a statement in the cottage than in the village, after all, and the fewer people who get a chance to stare at Theodora, the better. But Jon has seen the way Martin keeps turning to remark to someone who isn’t there, and he could almost taste Martin’s loneliness and longing when he’d cradled Theo in his arms like something infinitely precious the night before. 

So when Martin announces his intention to pick up a few things from the shops, Jon follows him to their rented car and climbs into the passenger seat without a word of discussion. Martin glances over at him and squeezes his hand briefly before turning the key in the ignition.

It’s not as much of an ordeal as Jon had feared. There aren’t any potential statement givers in the small shop, and with Theo tucked into the front of the jumper he’d borrowed from Martin, he even manages to avoid most stares. Not all of them, of course—the marks on her muzzle from where Ewein had held her as Daisy had threatened Jon are still visible. But the burns, the missing fur, the clinging cobwebs and dirt that won’t wash off: those are all hidden.

Now that he’s looking, Jon does notice a double-take or two directed at Martin. Martin does his best to ignore them, but Jon can see the way they weigh on him, and tries to pick up the pace to get both of them back home faster.

He slows down when Martin calls out to him from half an aisle back, though. Jon turns to see that Martin has picked up a small fabric sling from a tiny, picked-over display; clearly, it doesn’t get restocked often.

“Do you think it would fit Theodora?” Martin asks, offering it to Jon.

Jon takes it. The fabric is sturdier than it is soft, but the size looks about right and the print is inoffensive. “We can try,” he says. “Thank you.” His gaze drifts to the rest of the display: several perches in different sizes, a variety of animal beds, a single leather falconer’s glove. And, in the corner, two oversized lockets, with air holes and transparent panels on the front.

Jon hesitates before picking one up. He’s not entirely sure the idea will be a welcome one. But Martin did complain to him about it unprompted the previous day, so maybe—“Do you think this might help? With the staring?” he asks.

Martin inspects it silently, a pensive look on his face. The crystal front is a smoky gray; it would be hard for a casual passer-by to figure out what, if anything, is inside. But after a little while, Martin shakes his head and puts it back. “I don’t think it would do much good,” he says. “Maybe if I’d come in with it? But I don’t think I can fool the person at the till.” 

The excuse is flimsy, but Jon lets it stand. He suspects Martin’s true reason has less to do with his skill at deception and more to do with the fact that the empty locket would be a reminder of exactly what it is he’s trying to hide. “Right,” Jon says. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s—” Martin puts a hand on Jon’s back as they begin walking back toward the front of the shop. “It was a good idea. Thank you for pointing it out.”

Despite his protestations to the contrary, the woman at the till accepts Martin’s excuse of having a shy daemon without more than a reflexive eyebrow raise at a man referring to his daemon as a _him._ “My sister’s is the same way,” she says, almost conspiratorially. “Prettiest little ladybird you’d ever see, but if he doesn’t come out to say hello on purpose, you’d never spot him. What’s yours? Beetle? Snake? Spider?”

“Spider,” says Martin after a frozen half-second. “Er—brown house spider. The, um, the males are smaller than the females, so he’s—sort of tiny. Nervous around most other daemons. And people. You know how the really little ones get.”

The woman nods sagely, and launches into an anecdote about her sister’s shy ladybird as she finishes with their purchases, the sparrow perched on her shoulder commenting occasionally in a surprisingly deep baritone. Martin makes the appropriate “hmmm”s and “I see”s as he fishes out his wallet.

Afterwards, back in the car, Martin turns to Jon with an apologetic look on his face. “Sorry. I know you don’t like them, I just—it was the only thing I could think of on short notice—” Jon takes his hand, and Martin quiets.

“It’s all right,” says Jon. “I know you _do_ like them. And hearing the word ‘spider’ once in a while isn’t going to upset me.”

“I’m glad I don’t actually have a spider daemon,” says Martin, as he starts the car and turns onto the dirt road leading back to the house. “Would probably be pretty unpleasant for you.”

“Spider daemons aren’t exactly the same as real spiders,” says Jon. “The talking helps. And if Al—” Jon cuts himself off hastily, but the damage is already done; Martin looks down for a moment before returning his eyes to the road. “If he _were_ a spider,” Jon continues, “I’d learn to live with him just the same.”

“If he were here,” Martin amends quietly.

“If he were here,” Jon echoes.

* * *

“Do you think he’ll come back?” Martin asks one night, a few days later.

“Al, you mean?” says Jon, lifting his head from the pillow.

“Yeah.”

“Can you…” Jon hesitates. 

Theodora, typically, plunges ahead. “Can you still feel him?”

“I think so,” says Martin. “I’m pretty sure I’d know if he were gone.”

“Then he’ll come back,” says Theodora.

“But what if he doesn’t?” Martin whispers.

Jon’s heart breaks. He presses himself closer against Martin’s side. “He loves you,” says Jon. “That’s what daemons do. That’s what they’re _for.”_

“He’s angry with me, though,” says Martin. “Or, I think he is, anyway. We didn’t—we hadn’t talked. Not since you figured out how to quit. Well, we weren’t talking before then, either, but that was because it was the plan. Afterwards, it was because we were upset with each other.”

“You disagreed?” Jon asks.

Martin nods, hair rustling against the pillow. “He wanted to abandon the plan and go with you. I told him, I told him that we’d agreed we’d see it though, and that he couldn’t—he couldn’t just give up, not when we were so close, and he told me—” Martin sniffles. “He told me to stop lying to him. And to myself. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about, and maybe I believed that at the time, but—I _wanted_ to go. I knew, deep down, that you—that you meant it, that you would have gone through with it if I’d said yes. I _should_ have said yes.”

“You had your reasons,” Jon murmurs.

“They weren’t _good_ reasons,” says Martin, voice wobbling. “I was in over my head, and I couldn’t see the way out, and then—and then the way out dropped right into my lap, and I couldn’t even admit to myself it was what I’d been looking for.” He sniffles loudly. “I miss Al. I just want him back.”

Theo makes as if to climb over Jon, but Jon hastily grabs her and fixes her with a glare. _Not now,_ he mouths. He thought he’d been subtle about it, but Martin chuckles damply from behind him. “Thank you, Theodora,” he says. “But Jon’s right. Maybe another time.”

Theo makes a discontented whine, but settles back down on Jon’s far side.

“I love you,” says Jon into Martin’s shoulder. “I know that doesn’t fix this. But it’s true. I love you, and I’m here.”

Martin doesn’t say anything, but he does turn his head and press a kiss to the crown of Jon’s head.

* * *

It seems easier, afterwards, for Martin to talk about Aloysius. He still withdraws a bit when the topic comes up, and Jon suspects that he’s still afraid Al won’t come back, but conversations don’t just die the way they used to. 

Jon had never really had a chance to talk to Al much, with the notable exception of the brief time all four of them had been trapped together during Prentiss’s attack. Much like Theo, he’d never seemed to like speaking in public; whether that had been down to old-fashioned manners or just natural shyness, Jon had never been sure. 

“Oh, he really is shy,” says Martin, when Jon asks. “I wasn’t making that bit up. But, of course, he can’t really hide the way I said he could, at the shop. Not that that would stop him. When I was young, maybe ten or so, he got into the habit of crawling into my bag at school.”

Jon frowns. “He didn’t try shifting into something smaller?”

Martin’s expression turns sheepish, and a little wary. “He settled when I was eight.”

Jon struggles to keep the shock and pity off his face. He considers and discards half a dozen replies before remarking, deliberately casual, “Theo settled when I was eleven and a half.”

“That early? She suits you so well, though,” says Martin, surprised.

Jon shrugs. Theo pipes up from her sling, “We spent a lot of time thinking about what I would be.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Sure,” says Jon, unable to help a smile. He has a feeling he knows how Martin is going to react to the rest of the story. “But not everyone makes charts.”

“Charts?” There’s a spark in Martin’s eye, his earlier embarrassment forgotten. “Like pros and cons?”

“Pros and cons, and phylogenetic trees,” says Jon. “And drawings, but those weren’t very scientific.”

Martin laughs, delighted. “I didn’t know you drew!”

Jon chuckles along. “I didn’t really keep it up. I don’t think I even kept any of my old drawings past uni.”

“Aw.” 

At Martin’s disappointment, Jon frowns. “I think I brought a pen with me. Wait here.”

The sketch Jon produces is lopsided, and he dithered too long on whether or not to include the marks on Theo’s muzzle to make them look entirely natural. But it’s still more-or-less recognizable as her, and she preens at Martin’s praise.

“Any reason why you picked a housecat?” Martin asks, as Jon tries and fails to draw a good likeness of Theo as a kitten from memory.

“Small enough to carry easily but big enough to not be fragile,” Theodora rattles off. “Soft, warm-blooded, able to climb, night vision, good hearing, quiet, able to purr. Also, cats are the best animal.”

“Is that so?” asks Martin. He glances over at Jon, then offers his hand to Theo.

When Theo buts her head against Martin’s fingertips, Jon drops his pen. “It is,” says Theo, sounding extremely satisfied.

* * *

There isn’t any warning when it happens. One moment, Jon is curled up on the sofa with Martin, Theodora, and a book, and the next, Theo is out the door like a shot.

“Theo!” Jon cries, stumbling forwards reflexively. It still doesn’t hurt the way it used to, but he is intimately aware of the fact that _his daemon is_ _getting farther away,_ and it’s deeply unpleasant even if there’s no pain. “Theo, wait—!”

“Jon?” Martin sets his own book down and hurries over to help Jon up. “Jon, what’s going on? Where’s she going?”

“I don’t know,” Jon babbles. “I don’t—”

“Should we follow her?” Martin asks, rocking from foot to foot.

“Yes,” says Jon, and leads Martin out the front door by the hand.

Theodora is all the way across the meadow next to the house, just a small gray blot at the edge of the trees. _Twenty meters,_ Jon thinks, dizzily. Plenty of people end up in hospital with separation shock for less than half that distance. 

“Is she… talking to someone?” says Martin. Then, “Oh. _Oh._ I have to—I need to—”

Martin sits down heavily on the porch as Theodora turns and starts walking towards the house. And following her is—

Jon blinks. Following her is Aloysius. Jon is utterly certain that it’s him, somehow, even at this distance. Even though only his head and tail poke up out of the tall grass.

Even though Aloysius is— _was—_ a small brown sheepdog, and the daemon walking beside Theodora is unmistakably a red fox.

Once they’re within a few meters of the house, Theodora bounds forward and twines against Jon’s legs. He reaches down and picks her up. “Do you… need a minute?” he asks, uncertain. Al is still standing at the edge of the tall grass, watching Martin, who still sits unmoving on the porch.

Still looking at Martin, Al says, “Stay.” Martin makes a noise somewhere between a whimper and a squeak at the sound of his voice.

For several long moments, nothing happens. Then Martin reaches out a shaking hand and says, “Please?”

Al begins delicately picking his way toward Martin, but gives up only after a few steps and bounds the rest of the way. He’s no larger than he was before—Jon thinks he might actually be smaller—but he nearly bowls Martin over in his haste. Martin gathers Al up into his arms and hugs him like a teddy bear, shoulders trembling.

At length, Martin pulls back to regard Al. Al meets his gaze steadily. “You shifted,” says Martin. “How?”

Al’s ears flick. “I don’t know,” he says. “I wasn’t myself for a while. I’m not sure how long. Maybe it happened then? I remember going north to find you, but I don’t remember walking.” He pauses. “I think this might be what I was supposed to be, all along. I think I got it wrong the first time.”

Martin gently scratches the cream-colored fur under Al’s chin, and Al makes a strange chittering squeak, eyes drifting shut in contentment. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” says Martin.

“I forgive you,” says Al. “But let’s not do that again, please.”

“We won’t,” says Martin fiercely. “I promise.”

With one last nuzzle to Martin’s shoulder, Al steps out of his lap and walks over to Jon. Jon stares down at him. He has the same eyes, Jon realizes. Martin’s daemon has had a fox’s eyes in a dog’s face for _years,_ and he’d never noticed. 

Somehow, Al’s demeanor softens; Jon isn’t quite sure if it’s those eyes, or something in his posture. “Thank you,” says Al, quiet and very sincere. He presses his face against the side of Jon’s leg for a moment, and Martin makes a shocked, punched-out gasp. Then he brushes past Jon to walk into the house. Theodora wriggles out of Jon’s grasp and follows him in, and a moment later, Jon feels the warm, sympathetic glow of Theo touching another daemon.

Jon turns to Martin, who’s still sitting on the floor, looking vaguely like he expects to be struck by lightning. Jon bites back a smile and offers him a hand.

When they venture back inside together, Al and Theo are curled up together in the exact center of the sofa, gleaming orange and patchy gray, identical looks of mischief on their pointed faces. Martin coughs out a laugh that still has a few tears in it, and settles on the floor in front of the sofa. Jon sits down beside him, though not before rolling his eyes at Theo. Theo, the picture of smugness, starts purring.

* * *

Sometimes Martin and Aloysius go on long walks together, enjoying being alone together after being alone and apart for so long. Sometimes Martin visits the village by himself, and Al stays behind with Jon and Theodora. Sometimes it’s Al who goes wandering alone, and Martin and Jon stay behind and read, or bake, or just sit and talk, taking turns lavishing Theodora with hugs and pets. 

“It doesn’t feel that odd, honestly,” says Martin one day, while Al is out. “It used to hurt when we were apart, same as anybody else, but it doesn’t anymore.”

“Like it’s gone numb?” Jon asks, fascinated.

“Not numb,” says Martin, and considers. “More like the connection between us can spool out, instead of just stretching. I don’t know how far apart we can be, but there’s no strain on it anymore, even if it’s a few miles.”

“Ours doesn’t hurt anymore, but I can still feel it stretch,” says Jon. “When Theodora went to get Al from across the yard, it was almost all I could think about.”

“Wonder why it’s so different,” says Martin.

Jon shrugs. “No clue. I’m sure I could figure it out if I put my mind to it, but…” Martin _hmmm_ s and leans his cheek against the top of Jon’s head.

In an hour, Aloysius will slip back in through the kitchen door and curl up in Martin’s lap; by nightfall, Theodora will have groomed the dust and grit of the outdoors out of his coat, restoring it once again to gleaming red-orange and black. Maybe, in the morning, he will offer his chin or his ears—both cool to the touch, like Theodora’s, but just as soft as hers, too—to Jon for a brief scratch, and Jon will make sure Martin isn’t holding anything breakable before gladly indulging.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: mentions of strangers being judgemental/nosy, vague descriptions of an animal in peril/an animal having scars (no on-page animal harm), allusions to Jon’s and Martin’s canon-typical shitty childhoods.
> 
> [A general explanation of daemon AUs](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Daemon_AU), for those unfamiliar. Jon's daemon, Theodora, is a Russian Blue housecat; Martin's daemon, Aloysius, is a small mixed-breed sheepdog.
> 
> Tell me your favorite line, if you like :)


End file.
